SUST VC apologises, solution yet clouded

An apology from the vice-chancellor of the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) cropped up Monday for his misogynist remarks, yet no solution to contain raging student protest at the university and on other campuses is in sight.  

SUST students said they will continue the hunger strike on the campus – that will roll onto a straight seventh day Tuesday – protesting a police attack on them until VC Prof Farid Uddin Ahmed resigns.

The University Teachers' Network, Bangladesh also urged the VC Monday to step down immediately, letting the students on hunger strike to conclude their demonstration, and the university to normalise.  

Meanwhile, Dhaka University Teachers' Association said any situation on the campus should be settled through discussion. The association suspected a vested quarter is trying to fish in the troubled waters by turning the anti-VC movement into an anti-government one.

SUST VC Prof Farid Uddin Ahmed, who remains confined at the university residence by his students, phoned Jahangirnagar University (JU) VC Farzana Islam on Monday noon and offered apology to the students and teachers over derogatory comments, according to a JU press release.     

Amid the anti-VC protest at SUST, an audio clip of Prof Farid started making round-ups in social media last week where he was heard making objectionable remarks about JU female students.

Prof Farid claimed to VC Farzana Islam that the audio clip is fabricated and he understood that the remarks upset the JU family. He hoped that the liberal and progressive teachers and students of Jahangirnagar University would forgive him, the release added.

SUST students cut off the utilities to the VC's residence on Sunday night. The supplies were restored Monday with alternatives, while a teachers' delegation came to meet the VC with food on Monday evening.    

But in the face of student protest, they had to return.   

"We have been on hunger strike for six long days, while many of us have already been hospitalised. But our teachers did not think about us as they came to meet the VC with food. This proves how careless they are about the pupils," said one of the agitating students.  

In the afternoon, the students walked in an agitation march on the campus and held a road painting with their one-point anti-VC demand in the evening.   

On 13 January, a group of SUST resident students began demonstrating, alleging that their provost, Zafrin Ahmed Liza, misbehaved with a student who called her to report bad food and other issues.

On 16 January, police charged batons, lobbed tear shell canisters, fired rubber bullets and threw stan grenades on the agitating students that left over 30 pupils injured. The police action turned the student protest into an-anti VC one as protesters went on a fast-unto-death programme.

Education Minister Dipu Moni spoke with a delegation of the protestors in a video call on Saturday night for almost an hour. The students said that they would not break their fast until the VC resigned.

On Monday, the University Teachers Network observed a token hunger strike on Dhaka University campus to express solidarity with the SUST students. Many Dhaka University students also joined the protest expressing their solidarity.

At the programme, Jahangirnagar University teacher Prof Anu Muhammad said the SUST VC should resign immediately if he has minimum self-respect.  

"Though the students are staging the demonstration for saving the SUST, they are actually risking their lives for a greater movement meant for repairing and strengthening the battle for change at all public universities," commented Anu Muhammad.

On Monday evening, left leaning student organisations brought out a torch procession on Dhaka University campus expressing solidarity to the ongoing SUST movement. Before that, they held a brief agitation rally in front of the National Museum at Shahbagh.